Over the years we had a 50' Albin, with 17' beam, 4'8" draft, and was amazingly light at approximately 8000 pounds displacement. Twin hulls & engines, two helm stations, two heads, two aft cabins, two galleys, and two cockpits. Had a lot of fun.

Not really all cored...glass over teak ply on cabin sides, main decks look like teak ply with glass top/bottom, cabin roof was a mosaic of small teak blocks sorta in a poly resin...horrible construction.

The stuff was soaked but not rotten...some rot around the widows. Hull solid glass (well not so solid).

Although I own my boat since 2003,only now did I find out this thread.Better late than never I guess.
The boat is a sundeck model,43 with the serial No AUL43250F889, and is equiped as follows: twin Cummins diesel 6.5btm, 210hp turbo, transmissions Twin Disk transmissions reduction 2:1,4 blades prop 24x21,2'' shafts, microcommander controls,bowthruster.6 120 amps house batteries ,2 engines batteries, 3 solar panel 130W+regulator MPPT,inverter -charger Xantrex 2012,supported when needed by Honda 3000 portable generator, espar diesel heater.
Am the 4th owner. Engines had 1200hrs when bought,have now 3200. No problems with engines nor transmissions except change this year of raw water pumps .
Decks and sundeck in teck. Had to redo some seams . Handrails in teck ok. Fiberglass ok,no blisters, except for sundeck roof that I had redone in 2006. Boat was very well maintained when bought, and I continued the practice. Inside, were some leaks at port door and one port in the aft room when bought. I did repait them ,but seams have to be checked periodically.. Have travelled quite extensively ( Florida, US East Coast, Georgian Bay, Saguenay River,Thousand Islands,Hudson) We have spent the last ten entire summers on boat with no assigned marina, always at anchor . Boat very comfortable with great autonomy, and plenty of room for friends and family, especially with protected sundeck. Spend average of 3.5 Gph at 1450RPM,7.5kn with no current against.

....Have travelled quite extensively ( Florida, US East Coast, Georgian Bay, Saguenay River,Thousand Islands,Hudson) We have spent the last ten entire summers on boat with no assigned marina, always at anchor . Boat very comfortable with great autonomy, and plenty of room for friends and family,

Are there anymore observations, details, or advice you could offer for a real stand-alone /self-sufficient vessel??

Would you say that some of these problems were from lack of maintence by the previous owner, or mostly inherent with the builder of early boats? What year was yours??

Quote:

Originally Posted by Capt Kangeroo

Hiro, the Albin's are solid, sea worthy, time proven designs from a company that has been building boats for over 100 years. Most designs had long production runs and they cost quite a bit more than others of similar design but they also hold their value extremely well "if properly maintained". Unfortunately, despite their reputation they are plagued by all the same problems found on just about every make of trawler out there, that being leaky windows, rotted fuel tanks and hull blisters. They addressed some of these issues on later models from about the late 1980's and up by eliminating the teak decks, encasing tanks in fiberglass and using high quality aluminum framed windows but many of the newer ones still have blisters. (Incidentally I have the new windows and they still leak during very heavy rainfalls). Also like many others, Albin's quality control ran from one extreme to the other and resulted in no two boats being exactly the same..... regardless if it was built in the USA or Taiwan.

That said, get a good surveyor that you pick yourself, "not the seller or the broker". Pay special attention to leaks. The albin 43 is a beautiful boat and a proven design but the make and model are less important than how it has been maintained over the years. Fuel tanks can be replaced and blisters can be repaired if they bother you but leaky, poorly maintained windows, fittings and decks "destroy boats".

From the sounds of these 2 quotes it sure raises a LOT of questions about purchasing one of these used, particularly an older one?

Hi Brian, don't let me put you off Albins. I've owned many boats over the last 50 years and it has been a long expensive learning curve leading to our ideal "final" boat..... an "Albin". I just like to complain. Make no mistake, every make and model of boat out there has the same old problems, albeit some to a greater or lessor extent. You can read about them here on TF nearly every day, primarily the big three being leaky tanks, rotted wood and blisters. Regardless of the make/model your choices are to find one which fits your needs that has had these faults corrected & pay fair value, or buy one discounted appropriately & do the work yourself. I chose the latter, hence my feeling the need to unjustly gripe to anyone who will listen.

If you accept a level playing field with regard to the same faults/defects being common to all trawlers, then the major decision becomes which make/model/size best suits your needs. In this the Albin met virtually every point on our very demanding wish list. I should add I also drew substantial comfort buying from a company that has been building boats since the days of the Tall Ships and therein was the #1 requirement on my wish list. ie: a long history of proven, solid, "seaworthy" designs.

All that said, and despite the fact I'm certain you already knew all this....... speaking of great boats, I'll trade you my Albin for your DynaRig MotorSailer design, fully built and ready to sail away of course.

I imagine those teak deck problems and those fuel tank problems can add up to some healthy repair monies?

I've also seen a number of people talking about the ports leaking, and some difficulties with doing a 'proper' repair?

I'm looking for something fairly easy to handle by myself since my Thai wife is not a boater at all,....and that we can live on doing those periods of time we live in the USA verses Thailand.....a floating home/cottage we can move to a few different areas at various years.

Decks and fuel tanks aren't necessarily expensive if you can do some/all of the work...I did both for under $1000 in materials but I'm sure it would have been 10K if a marina did it.

Removing the old tanks is one of the major concerns I would think. I doubt the original builder provided access 'holes' to do this, so I would imagine a lot of the interior of the vessel would be significantly 'disturbed'.

Tearing off the old teak decks is likely not that much of a problem, but repairing/replacing the water soaked core material is a big problem,...one that can grow in expanse just as does the repair of rot in wood vessels,...very often more extensive that first imagined.

Capt Kangeroo wrote;
"Make no mistake, every make and model of boat out there has the same old problems".
Perhaps you just made a mistake. The real Albin made in Sweeden called the Albin 25 Deluxe has no such problems.

Removing the old tanks is one of the major concerns I would think. I doubt the original builder provided access 'holes' to do this, so I would imagine a lot of the interior of the vessel would be significantly 'disturbed'.

Nope..just cut them up and take'm out in pieces...it's actually pretty quick too...now depending on what you whant put back in is a big question......

Tearing off the old teak decks is likely not that much of a problem, but repairing/replacing the water soaked core material is a big problem,...one that can grow in expanse just as does the repair of rot in wood vessels,...very often more extensive that first imagined.

Actually tearing of the deck and getting out lots'a screws is actually very time consuming. On my boat the decks were teak blocks and were wet..but not rotten so the main just got recovered in cloth and resin, the flybridge had a 3x7 area replaced with ply as I didn't want to rebed all the teak blocks.

Neither of these jobs sounds inexpensive when contracted out.

doing the grunt work would save tons...depending on what tanks you want back in and how you want the deck refinished could be relatively inexpensive too.

You mean there are torch men out there that don't have qualms about cutting up fuel tanks,...particularly ones containing fuel residues??

Couldn't up-size that 'teak block' photo, but do you mean to tell me these builders actually placed old blocks of teak wood in as a core between layers of glass skins?...as one might do with balsawood cores?? WOWee, what a lousy construction!

You mean there are torch men out there that don't have qualms about cutting up fuel tanks,...particularly ones containing fuel residues??

Couldn't up-size that 'teak block' photo, but do you mean to tell me these builders actually placed old blocks of teak wood in as a core between layers of glass skins?...as one might do with balsawood cores?? WOWee, what a lousy construction!

Sawzall..... right to a fuel tank with fuel still in the bottom..no issues...torch sawzall blades/no flaming ones...

yep...people that think production boats are made well need to disassemble one or watch at the factory closely. If the blocks had been set in epoxy and the entire flybridge not full of holes from screwed together construction...it may have lasted much better.

Since the mid-90's I'd say most boats are built much better but before then only a rare few were...